CWGT2
The second season of the Crapwagon.com Grand Touring World Offline Series (CWGT2) began not long after the first one, with a visit to Louisville, Kentucky on December 20, 2004. Due to a nine-way tie for first place at the Nurburgring 24 (with MHF adding himself to the fray with the win there), the first one-race dash to decide the entire campaign was held at that venue January 22, 2005, with Rogue Leader emerging victorious as Season 2 champion (and Rookie of the Year) after LeMans winner Cigar2 pitted late. (Due to format changes in Season 3 and Seasons 4-7, the next one-race tiebreaker dash would not occur until Season 8, in fall 2013.) Due to time constraints, the Spa 24 Hours was not held in this season, the only time one of the "big three" endurance events was left off the calendar. However, an all-star event was held there at Rogue Leader's request, and thus the three core courses of CWGT have remained on every season's schedule. Top Stories After the success of CWGT1, TheStranger was looking to build on the action and excitement of that first go-around. At the same time, with the Redline GTP mod for NR2003 only weeks away, he felt - prudently - that going too long in a transition season would be a momentum block. As he was on Christmas break for much of the campaign, he recruited fellow CWGT participant FCYTravis to do broadcasting duties - a decision which had unforeseen effects for both that season and (to some degree) future years. With the virtual broadcast contract, FCYTravis added a few races reflecting his real-life background in club racing and modern sports car racing (twin heats, visits to obscure Midwest club courses, et al). Most of these additions were reversed for season 3, except for the regular event at Bowman Gray Stadium - originally intended as a satirical short track event unbecoming of sports car racing, but now one of the most important non-endurance races on the calendar. Season 2 CWGT2 generally had a prequalifying pool of 44 drivers, though as usual this varied depending on track size (even with the best efforts of FCYTravis and TheStranger to ensure a full grid). Rookies who made their debuts in Season 2 (in addition to those rookies who had only competed in a handful of events in Season 1) were Cartcanuck, Cigar2, and Spinout, of which only Cartcanuck remained in the series into the prototype era. For the first time, ovals were added to the schedule - Louisville, Trenton, and Bowman Gray. Trenton has never been run in the prototype era, but the other two have been regular events in the years since, particularly Bowman Gray's 500 lapper (which has essentially remained unchanged). Louisville was chosen as the season-opener for this and the subsequent three seasons as a nod to two NASCAR practices: the concept that a random track, not Daytona, was the season-opener in Cup for years, and the old Winter Heats at Tucson that were a mid-90s ESPN2 staple. McB switched to Ferrari for this campaign (after acquiring the Mark Tortellini ride briefly in the offseason), while Evil Wilke ran a Corvette. Padre stuck to the BMW Z4 after having started his CWGT career in a Dodge (and having a few starts in an Aston Martin). WildrideFS became the first CWGT driver to ever receive a ban from the series, after admitting in several posts that he was a fan of the Indy Racing League. Season 2 would be the final season for Nadira (as new CWGT rules since then only allow actual members of Crapwagon to join), along with LeMans winner Cigar2, Spinout, Chief, CWGT1 Nurburgring champion power&glory, Greg Pizzo, IMS-Pitraider, ctkatz, and fourrunner (who would pass away several months later). Cohiba took Season 3 off and Raptor was on hiatus for several years as well - both would not fully emerge as competitive forces until Season 6. A spotter's guide was provided, as well as a preseason chat thread . CWGT2 Team Chart Teams are listed in order of when they first participated in the series. Sponsors are listed without specifying which events they ran on the car. Rookies are marked with ®. The Season 2 champion, Rogue Leader, is marked entirely in bold. *CREP was a subsidiary of CWRT until the Season 5 merger of CWRT and d.tuned Events Season 2 thread Race length is noted in parentheses when not made obvious by the event name. One event is marked with D to note it was a sudden death contest where the championship was up for grabs. Race Results Selected Race Summaries Round 4 - Loudon At the Bob Bahre Endurance Classic, Mr. Vengeance took the victory after Cigar2 pitted on the last lap - the first of several notable instances in which the #66 T-Bird Swap Shop Ferrari would find itself either aided or obstructed by pit strategy. Those two would battle for bigger trophies later on in the campaign. Round 11 - Sears Point #1 Greg Pizzo's only career victory in CWGT would be at a rather appropriate venue - in real life, he won an American Continental Challenge event here that same year. Round 14 - Portland The SCCA Rose Cup was the most controversial event in series history to that point - though it wasn't necessarily obvious at time. (Maybe appropriate though given the "did Jimmy Vasser or Al Unser Jr. win" fiasco there during the 1995 Champcar season) FCYTravis led most of a flip-filled event but then suddenly wrecked before a long coverage break - had he won the event, he would have been the first to three wins in that year. Instead, this paved the way for Padremobile's honcho, Padre himself, to take his first career win. Well after the fact, FCYTravis revealed to TheStranger that he had actually gotten in the player car on the scoring computer and successfully punted his CWGT car with it, in order to keep the standings race close! (One piece of evidence was the lack of a photo for Travis's wreck, despite just about every other major crash being captured by the Complex Magenta Safety Team's handy cameras.) Given that the trophy dash was almost entirely a product of such blatant event manipulation, it's not hard to see why CWGT2 is not considered one of the more noteworthy seasons on record (in addition to the fact the champion barely participated and did not stay long in the prototype era). Round 21 - Magny-Cours What was originally to be a 1000km event became a snarky 14 minute "enduro" - the shortest scheduled CWGT race ever, not counting scoring computer shutdowns - mocking how uninteresting the Magny-Cours track has been. Mazza19 took the second victory of his second campaign in the series there and ultimately qualified for the season-ending trophy dash based on less than a quarter-hour of work. (He had a victory earlier at Heartland Park Topeka in the second race there, and at the time, CWGT did have its regular joke 30 minute enduro at Phoenix anyway - which fascinatingly enough, eventual champion Rogue Leader won.) Round 22 - 24 Hours of LeMans If anyone DID have to pick a choice for "greatest race" in the GTX/Extended Trans-Am days of CWGT, Season 2's soiree at Sarthe would be the best candidate. Due to limitations with the Evil Wilke Productions NRtv broadcast system, the chicanes were in use for the first of two straight seasons at LeMans, to accomodate the live action. While TheStranger did not make the race, the grid was rather full and the storylines started emerging quickly - Cigar2 moved up from 13th on the grid to 4th early on in the fifth hour of the event. At the end of seven hours, the #66 Preston Henn's Thunderbird Swap Shop Ferrari had made it to the point for the first time! Also charging in the field was Loudon winner and CWGT1 champion Mr. Vengeance, who had moved up from 11th to 7th around that point in the race. With 17 hours completed, Mr. Vengeance had pushed on to third - but his Elmo Experiments Pimpmobile Mustang was running laps 10 seconds behind than Cigar2. At 19:39, Cigar2 retook the lead from Raptor with a smooth move past the #97 at Maison Blanche. Early in the 22nd hour, Raptor and Mr. V started battling up close for the lead, delighting the virtual crowd who were not expecting things to be so tight so late. This actually was only a precursor for even crazier situations later in the afternoon. 100 minutes left in the race and the top three (Mr. V, Cigar2, and raptor) had 13 seconds between them, all hungry for the big win. At the one-hour-remaining mark, only a half second divided first place Cigar2 from 2nd place raptor!!! Mr. Vengeance was back up front - by 24 seconds - with a half hour to go, only to pit with about 20 minutes remaining, a move that would prove costly. Cigar2 reassumed the point, only to find the gap between himself and Mr. V's Mustang was shrinking dramatically in the final 5 minutes!!! Finally, Cigar2 ducked into pit lane, while Mr. V passed him...but nobody was quite sure who had won, with TheStranger thinking it was the Elmo Experiments machine. Nope. Cigar2 had hung on by about a straightaway and won the race while driving down pit lane - beginner's luck, as this was his very first win. Holding off a driver who still remains one of the series' absolute greatest talents is an accomplishment not many have completed, though it stands out even more as Cigar2 did not continue racing beyond his rookie year, and Mr. Vengeance would not win another of the Big Three endurance events until Nurburgring in Season 8. With both drivers participating in the season-ending championship shootout dash, those final 5 minutes at Sarthe were pivotal in their fate for that year. Would Mr. V have taken his second consecutive title if he had timed his pit window better? Would Cigar2 even be remembered were it not for that dramatic late-race showdown? Round 26 - Silverstone LeMans winner Cigar2 had started a middling 23rd, but by four hours, trailed only Nadira by 4.69 seconds. Soon Kahauna Dreamer looked like the man to beat, soon joined up front by Chief. At the one-hour-to-go mark, Chief led KD by only 0.66 seconds. Cigar2 was running in the final podium spot, but a full nine seconds back. Nadira reemerged as leader when the field cycled through pit stops, but it looked like she had at least one more visit to her stall left (based on calculations in the paddock) and Chief and KD continued their battling, but at the moment, for second. Then disaster struck when the two made contact with 36 minutes remaining, taking them out of contention for the win. Cigar2 finally pitted with 12 minutes remaining, leaving Madre in the lead...but she went in for service with 6 minutes to go and the Swap Shop Ferrari once more found itself victorious. Round 31 - Bowman Gray A silly 500 lap enduro right before the Nurburgring. Who'd ever love this, right? The first ever Humpy Wheeler 500-Lap Enduro Spectacular marked Fourrunner's one and only win in the series, but he made this one count, lapping the entirety of the grid in the process (and staying out of trouble as other drivers, such as Chief, found themselves upside down). Round 32 - 24 Hours of the Nurburgring The second ever CWGT 24 Hours at the Ring marked several major milestones. For one, this was the second season in a row that the championship was on the line at the big track, but where Season 1's event at the Ring had four drivers attempting to force a trophy dash with Mr. Vengeance, Season 2 had 8 drivers who could possibly take the championship outright with a win, and several more that would join the other eight in a championship shootout. This also marked the inaugural broadcast for McBvision, then using NRTV technology instead of the screenshot-and-streaming methods that the virtual network would later become noted for pioneering. Pflantzgarten corner proved too much for Cigar2, who would not sweep the 24 hour events that year. After about two hours, only two championship contenders remained: Mr. Vengeance and mommymushbrain, as noted by future CWGT regular dsriggs. But mommymushbrain wrecked before the race had reached 2:30, and it seemed like Mr. Vengeance had the path cleared for his second straight season trophy. He even found himself in the lead before he had to pit (where he made contact with a damaged Padre). Nearing the end of the fourth hour though...everything started to unravel. Mr. V wrecked and thus a trophy dash was now guaranteed for CWGT2. At the 4:30 mark, 5 of 6 drivers remaining were eligible for getting into the championship shootout via second regular season win. Suddenly MHF, the winner back at the first Oran Park race, started putting his stamp on the event and holding on to first place. 90 minutes later, his Gitanes Renault was the last car remaining, and wrecked out - with a spot in a crazy 9-way championship shootout secured. Round 33 - Nurburgring Trophy Dash Hours after CWGT officials declared the 32nd race of the season complete, the Coca Cola presents the Nadira Shootout was on. Nine CWGT pilots, virtually exhausted from a six-hour attempt at a 24 hour event, had to get their cars back on track to battle once more with all the marbles on the line. Those drivers were FCYTravis, Crapwagon.com founder mclark2112, Rogue Leader, Nurburgring 24 winner MHF, CWGT1 champion Mr. Vengeance, mommymushbrain, Mazza19, LeMans winner Cigar2, and the rather surprising Doft (the first title contender from the Padremobile garage, a sign of things to come in the future). Cigar2 looked primed to get another surprise opportunity, taking the pole amongst the 5 drivers who recorded a qualifying time. But the race was a typical CWGT affair - carnage, carnage, carnage. On lap 2, Travis wrecked by himself at Pflantzgarten, followed by a pileup involving Doft, Mr. Vengeance, MHF, and eventually mommymushbrain. All but MHF saw their championship hopes gone. Up front at the 5 lap mark was Cigar2. Then the Swap Shop Ferrari had troubles at Pflantzgarten - just as it did in the 24 - necessitating a pit stop with only ONE lap remaining. Rogue Leader stayed on the racing surface and thus ended up as the shocking CWGT2 titleholder eight minutes later. Full Series Results Championship System As with Season 1, the "Paul Tracy System" counting only wins was in use. Due to a nine-way tie after MHF's victory at the 24 Hours of the Nurburgring, a 100-mile trophy dash occurred immediately after. Award Winners Series Champion - Rogue Leader with 3 wins (Phoenix, Oulton Park, Nurburgring Trophy Dash) Rookie of the Year - Rogue Leader Raul Boesel Award - Hosehead (still hadn't won a race to this point) All-Star Race Winner - mommymushbrain, at Spa-Francorchamps The Rahal-Guerrero Late Race Disappointment Award did not exist in this time period, but had it been in place, Cigar2 at the Trophy Dash probably would have won this: it cost him the championship/Rookie of the Year awards and he never raced in the series again. Category:Seasons